The Gilded Years

by Karin Tanabe

  “Please know I am still brokenhearted, Anita,” said Lottie, when they were alone in their parlor room that night. “And if Frederick can find a way to escape awful Cornell, I will drop Joseph Southworth immediately, even if he is related to the esteemed commodore.”

  “That’s awfully committed of you,” said Anita. “One meeting, and you’re so taken with my brother. Isn’t he lucky?”

  “It’s you Hemmings children,” said Lottie, propping herself on her elbow and letting her blond curls hang dramatically over her face. “There’s something quietly charming about you both. Such beautiful faces, such elegance, all wrapped up in a bewitching sort of humility. And don’t say you can blame me, Anita. He’s your brother!”

  Yes, Anita thought, that was the problem.

  The following day, Anita received a response to her latest letter to Frederick. She had been asking the maid for the mail early every day so that it was never brought to her room when both she and Lottie were there. Any letter from Frederick would have been torn out of her hand by Lottie to be delivered as a monologue.

  She folded the envelope and stuffed it in the pocket of her dress. She was already wearing her heaviest, a deep blue wool and silk with a trumpet skirt and a wide shoulder, purchased with her tutoring money before her sophomore year. She walked down to the library and chose a table in the middle back, surrounded by twenty thousand leather-bound books. She took the letter out of the envelope, already planning to burn it a few minutes later, as she did all Frederick’s letters.

  He had always been the mouthpiece of her family. He told her what her parents were doing in their day-to-day lives—about their health, their worries—along with news of their younger siblings. But she knew that was not the subject of this letter. She would have to wait for news of her family until she returned home for Christmas. Anita lifted the page. The paper was thin and cheap, not the thick, embossed stationery Frederick had used to reply to Lottie.

  Dear Anita,

  By the time this letter reaches you, you’ll know that I’ve been communicating with Lottie, but you being you, you were well aware of it already.

  I often think about you there, a Vassar girl just like the others—yet not. And I forget at times that it must be extremely difficult. When I check into a hotel in Poughkeepsie as a white man, or when I’m writing to a woman like Lottie (a very rare occurrence), then I remember the difficulty. How hard it must be to constantly remain alert, to appear effortless with so much effort, to leave the reality about yourself somewhere else. Will it die, you might wonder? Will I just become this person I am pretending to be?

  This is my way of apologizing. I’m sorry I was less than understanding with you when I was in Poughkeepsie last. Being a Negro student at the Institute of Technology is difficult. I attend the school, but I am not a part of it. There are teachers who try very hard to make me feel like just another student, but there are students who won’t let me feel that way. I’ve been taken for a worker, a servant. Once a freshman from Georgia handed me his formal shoes, thinking I was a bootblack, even though I was in my nicest suit. My situation is not ideal, but I need to remember that neither is yours. I have not been wearing the mask of a white person for almost four years. And when I think about you having to do so, not just for a weekend, but always—awake, asleep, in class, with friends, with strangers—it exhausts me, and my admiration for you is renewed.

  Which brings me to Lottie. It was with you in mind that I first responded to her. When you spoke of her at Smith Brothers that memorable autumn day in Poughkeepsie, you emphasized that she is a Taylor and that one cannot treat a Taylor casually. Thus, I did not. I responded to her letter, and I would be dishonest if I said I didn’t feel immensely flattered by her interest in me. Frederick Hemmings, Negro student, mistaken for the bootblack, attending the Vassar Philaletheis Day Dance with Lottie Taylor. We both know my skin is noticeably darker than yours, but she did not seem to see it, and if she did, she did not care.

  But the compliment didn’t entirely cloud my clarity of mind. It can never happen. Only for you, when I come to Vassar, do I live a double life, and if I attempted to do so full-time, I am sure I would be caught. It is not so simple to move fluidly between the black and white worlds. Yours are in separate compartments, and only when you are home during the summers do you become you again, a Negro again. Even over the Christmas holiday, there is not enough time for you to recover your habits. You seem foreign to all of us until we have you back for months.

  You are white at Vassar, and I am a Negro at MIT, and because of it, it’s dangerous for me even to be in Poughkeepsie. I’ve visited these past three years because there was no Lottie Taylor. No one took an interest in me or noticed me off-campus with you. But she has, and it’s a flattering, yet dangerous problem.

  I have handled Lottie’s advances as I hope you would have wanted me to. I was as polite as I felt I could be without swaying her affection further my way, but short of rude enough for her to feel disdain or anger toward me. I am hoping she will eventually feel detached enough to forget me altogether. Because that’s what we need to be when we walk in and out of these two worlds, Anita. Forgotten.

  She may—and part of me does hope she will—be upset by my poor excuse for why I cannot attend Phil Day. Please convince her that it is the case, that I have secretly been struggling with my studies. And then find someone she can quickly forget me for. Someone memorable.

  I know you will be attending Phil, but I urge you, sister, in fact I beg you: Do not attend the dance with Porter Hamilton. If he is there, grant him one dance, be civil, but dance with other men, one dance with each. Do not show any interest, past politeness, to anyone. You have done this so well all your years there. Continue to do it well now.

  I can imagine your face as I write this—bridling at the unfairness of it all. But it must be, Anita. You cannot, must not, get close to a man like Hamilton. It is the most dangerous thing you can do. If he ever knew, Anita, if you ever slipped and told him the truth, you would never see Vassar again.

  But I do not want to end my letter this way. I want to say that when I spent time with Lottie and you in Poughkeepsie, when I felt her warmth toward me and then had it confirmed by her many letters, I felt a great surge of pride. I wanted to be the type of man who could attend Phil Day with Lottie Taylor. I felt what you must feel with Porter. So it is with shame that I write what I write, but it is because of my love that you must follow my warning. You’ve known that since you were still at the Girls’ High School and said to me, “I won’t be staying here long. I’ll be attending Vassar College soon.” And you did.

  Your brother Frederick

  Anita reread the letter three times, the second two readings when it was hidden in one of her Greek texts. Frederick never used the word Negro in his letters. He knew better than to write anything that would be harmful to Anita if read by another. But this time, he had. She imagined that he was doing so as a threat, as a way to make her more fearful about attending the dance with Porter. She looked at the dangerous words on the page, then crumpled the letter, walked quickly to the new senior parlor, and let it tumble into the fire as she pretended to warm her hands. She watched as Frederick’s warnings were turned to ash. In ten days’ time, despite her brother’s disapproval, Porter would return.

  CHAPTER 11

  Before the first morning bell rang on December 4, Lottie was at Anita’s bedside in her nightclothes. She wrapped her silk-topped blanket tight around her, climbed on the bed and shouted, “It’s Phil Day!” jumping up and down as best she could with Anita’s legs in the way.

  Her roommate turned groggily over and watched her with amusement. Outside the window, Anita could see that it was snowing heavily, and she was happy that her last Phil Day dance would be bathed in snow, the fairy-tale setting of the campus in early winter.

  There was a serenity to four hundred acres without eligible men. There were, of course, men on campus, but besides the French professor, who had more tha
n a few of the girls besotted, none were suitable. But everything changed on Phil Day. As the men arrived in the afternoon, their male energy upended the decorous atmosphere of Main, seeping under the windows and through door frames like steam escaping a kettle.

  “I can’t believe it’s our last Phil Day,” said Anita, pushing back her covers, as excited as Lottie. She knew that after a barely touched breakfast, girls in costumes for the Phil plays would fly through the school and there would be hours of preparations—the decorating of the boxes for the dance, and more important, the decorating of the women for the impending arrival of the men.

  “Anita! Don’t get nostalgic yet. What you can’t believe is that the dashing Porter Hamilton is arriving in six hours. And what I can’t believe is that I am attending Phil with some street urchin I have never met. Old Southpaw.” Lottie pulled Anita’s straight black hair. “Hand me your mirror, Anita. I know I look frightening. That Southpaw boy will scream in horror when he sees me.”

  “Worth, Southworth,” said Anita, handing her the mirror.

  “Umm-hmm,” said Lottie, standing up. “Say his name all you want, but all you’re thinking about is Porter Hamilton. Hamilton, Hamilton. How convenient. Marry him, and you won’t even have to change your monogram.”

  The two girls dressed quickly and hurried down to the senior table in the center of the dining hall. Breakfast was more animated than on any morning since the semester began. Even the freshmen, who didn’t know what to expect past the play and the lecture, were buzzing.

  “Who is giving the address this year?” asked Caroline, through bites of pancakes. The college had a passion for pancakes, and there was even a special ten-foot griddle in the kitchen to cook them on.

  Belle took a bite from Caroline’s plate and motioned to the servers to bring her more. Anita may have been too nervous to eat, but Belle was not. “It’s a Mr. John Kendrick Bangs,” she said, watching the servers bring out plates of still-sizzling bacon. “He is the editor for the departments of humor for all three Harper’s magazines, including Bazaar.” Belle was an avid connoisseur of all things print, magazines included.

  “At least he won’t be dry. Is he handsome?” asked Caroline.

  “Extremely bald, I’m afraid. Tiny eyes like a street pigeon. A Columbia man,” Belle said.

  “A man’s looks are not everything,” Marion Schibsby chimed in from three seats down. She was promised to Jessup Platt, one of the homeliest men Yale had ever graduated. But he made up for his crooked face with his very straight bank account.

  “I know what will make the occasion less dry,” said Lottie.

  “The bottle of gin you’re hiding in your room!” said Belle, covering her mouth before the lady principal could come and scold her.

  The rest of the morning and the early afternoon saw Main transformed into a den of high-pitched chatter and flying clothes. Belle, Caroline, Anita, and Lottie took over their hallway, practicing their square dances and promenades down the long space. They paused in their antics and Belle let the top hat she was wearing fall, catching it on her foot.

  “Bravo, Belle!” said Lottie, applauding with her palms as she had seen them do in Japan. Behind her, a chorus of voices swelled, and she turned to see four girls floating down the hall on a similar cloud of excitement.

  “Hide, ladies!” Lottie hissed. “It’s the grandmothers club. Look at them, and your eyes are guaranteed to burn right out of your skull.”

  “Oh, it’s the Society of the Granddaughters,” Caroline said. “They must be getting ready in Emma’s room.”

  Mary Baille, Elizabeth Bishop, Emma Baker, and Clara Tuttle were the four members of the class of 1897 who were part of the exclusive Granddaughters club, open only to girls whose mothers had graduated from Vassar.

  “Do you know what that club’s motto is?” asked Lottie, after the group had passed without greeting them. “ ‘The condition of your birth is the measure of your worth.’ Have you ever heard such nonsense?”

  “Of course we’ve heard it,” said Anita. “They’ve been chanting it since we arrived. And don’t be too spiteful, Lottie. They would gladly give up being a Vassar Granddaughter to be a Taylor.”

  “Aren’t you sweet,” said Lottie, stealing the top hat from Belle and bowing to Anita. But Anita was right. Although Lottie may have been the first female Taylor to go to Vassar, she certainly wouldn’t be the last, and one day there would be buildings boasting her name, just as Strong Hall had been named for Bessie Rockefeller Strong. Yet Lottie was always quick to skewer elitist behavior, and Anita suspected that even if she were eligible for the Granddaughters, she would shun a club with such an arrogant motto.

  After the girls were satisfied with their steps and had lamented again the ban on round dancing, they separated and went back to their rooms to dress.

  “Only an hour until Porter and what’s-his-name arrives!” shouted Lottie, throwing every single dress that felt like silk or sateen onto her bed. “I hate your brother for not coming, Anita, hate, hate. How could he let his grades drop when he knew something as important as Phil Day was on the horizon!”

  “I can’t imagine,” said Anita. “I’m sure he truly regrets it.”

  “He should,” said Lottie from inside her closet. “I plan on looking sensational this evening. And so will you. The two prettiest square dancers there ever were. When will this school modernize? No one has ever ended up with child after a night of round dancing. Not right away, anyhow.” She emerged with her hair unfolding onto her shoulders, pins sticking out in all directions.

  “Clearly, something needs to be done about this,” she said, pointing to her head. “Is there a maid available? I’m going to run down and see.”

  The college, not individual girls, employed the maids at Vassar, but on a day like Phil, it did not seem like it.

  With the help of two of the older maids, who lived above the girls in the fifth-floor attic alcoves, Anita and Lottie, who were both petite and could easily exchange gowns, dressed in two of Lottie’s finest, a navy blue organdie and silk with two layers of ruffles at the base of the skirt for Anita and a daring, Grecian-cut white sateen dress for Lottie. Very few had yet dared to wear artistic dress at Vassar, though a few rebellious society women had done so in New York City.

  “Look at the asymmetrical himation,” Lottie said, fingering the smooth fabric draped dramatically over only her left shoulder. “I am in love with this gown.” She started curtseying to imaginary men and introducing herself to the air.

  Anita would never have dared wear such a modern, figure-revealing style, but Lottie lit up with even more confidence in it. “Tell me you at least have a corset on under that thin fabric,” Anita said, as her roommate wiggled in places she shouldn’t have been able to.

  “Of course I do,” Lottie said, tugging at her waist. “These corsets are becoming so long we will all look like Egyptian mummies soon. Hand me that little bag, will you, Anita?” she said, nodding to the divan. “It has my Duvelleroy fan inside.” Anita passed it to her. Last month the roommates had read in the latest issue of Harper’s Bazaar that a Duvelleroy fan cost as much as four hundred dollars, an entire year’s tuition at Vassar. “I have to bring it along or I won’t be able to hide my mouth and gossip the night away. And since I’m stuck with old Southpaw instead of the dashing Mr. Frederick Hemmings, what choice do I have?”

  Just before four o’clock, Anita and Lottie gathered with Belle and Caroline, and all four descended the stairs to the ground floor to meet their guests in the three visitors’ parlors. As they were the only place in Main where the students were allowed to greet their male visitors, the rooms, and the areas around them, were seething with men.

  “Where is that hunchbacked Southpaw fellow?” said Lottie loudly, scanning the visitors. She stopped and laughed, leaning back in her curve-exposing dress. “Why am I surveying the room? I don’t even know what old Southpaw looks like.”

  At that moment, a striking man in evening attire approac
hed Lottie and bowed. “Very pleased to meet you,” he said. “I am old Southpaw.”

  “Oh dear,” said Lottie. “How did you know me?”

  “I do hate to be the one to tell you, Miss Taylor, but your likeness has been in the newspapers quite a few times,” he said, handing her a bouquet. “I don’t think there is a man on the East Coast under the age of fifty who doesn’t know your beautiful face.” He bowed to her, all the while keeping his dark eyes on hers. “The name is Old Southpaw, and I am at your service.”

  While Caroline and Belle laughed along with Lottie at Joseph’s routine, Anita looked for Porter, who quickly emerged from behind Joseph Southworth as he was charming Lottie.

  Seeing Porter again, everything Anita had felt before multiplied like blood cells. He moved closer to her, and she watched his eyes go from her hair, to her dress, and up to her face before pronouncing her name.

  “Anita. I’m so glad I’m here,” he said, kissing her right hand just above her glove.

  “I am the one—” Anita began quietly, and then stopped, feeling no need to finish her sentence.

  Once Belle and Caroline had found their escorts, Arthur Martin and Raymond DeGroot, both Yale men, the group was complete and Joseph finished his story. Still addressing Lottie, but speaking loudly enough for them all to hear, he said, “You, Miss Taylor, fixated on the Orient as you are, will be most pleased to know that I am secretly Japanese. My mother hailed from Kyoto, a geisha who died in childbirth. But I pray you, do not tell a soul. I know that you, Louise Taylor, the empire of Japan’s biggest American fan—besides my late esteemed relation Commodore Perry—will keep my secret safe.”

  “Why would you ask me not to tell a soul but then say such a thing in front of my friends?” Lottie asked.

  “I’ve always believed that if you tell a secret out loud, there’s more of a chance that someone will keep it, as they can talk it over with their intimate friends. If you confide in just one person, they’ll tell everyone in town.”